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The Decorated Tenement: How Immigrant Builders and Architects Transformed the Slum in the Gilded Age
Winner of the International Society of Place, Landscape, and Culture Fred B. Kniffen Award
A reexamination of working-class architecture in late nineteenth-century urban America As the multifamily building type that often symbolized urban squalor, tenements are familiar but poorly understood, frequently recognized only in terms of the housing reform movement embraced by the American-born elite in the late nineteenth century. This book reexamines urban America’s tenement buildings of this period, centering on the immigrant neighborhoods of New York and Boston. Zachary J. Violette focuses on what he calls the “decorated tenement,” a wave of new buildings constructed by immigrant builders and architects who remade the slum landscapes of the Lower East Side of Manhattan and the North and West Ends of Boston in the late nineteenth century. These buildings’ highly ornamental facades became the target of predominantly upper-class and Anglo-Saxon housing reformers, who viewed the facades as garish wrappings that often hid what they assumed were exploitative and brutal living conditions. Drawing on research and fieldwork of more than three thousand extant tenement buildings, Violette uses ornament as an entry point to reconsider the role of tenement architects and builders (many of whom had deep roots in immigrant communities) in improving housing for the working poor. Utilizing specially commissioned contem-porary photography, and many never-before-published historical images, The Decorated Tenement complicates monolithic notions of architectural taste and housing standards while broadening our understanding of the diversity of cultural and economic positions of those responsible for shaping American architecture and urban landscapes.
Winner of the International Society of Place, Landscape, and Culture Fred B. Kniffen Award
A reexamination of working-class architecture in late nineteenth-century urban America As the multifamily building type that often symbolized urban squalor, tenements are familiar but poorly understood, frequently recognized only in terms of the housing reform movement embraced by the American-born elite in the late nineteenth century. This book reexamines urban America’s tenement buildings of this period, centering on the immigrant neighborhoods of New York and Boston. Zachary J. Violette focuses on what he calls the “decorated tenement,” a wave of new buildings constructed by immigrant builders and architects who remade the slum landscapes of the Lower East Side of Manhattan and the North and West Ends of Boston in the late nineteenth century. These buildings’ highly ornamental facades became the target of predominantly upper-class and Anglo-Saxon housing reformers, who viewed the facades as garish wrappings that often hid what they assumed were exploitative and brutal living conditions. Drawing on research and fieldwork of more than three thousand extant tenement buildings, Violette uses ornament as an entry point to reconsider the role of tenement architects and builders (many of whom had deep roots in immigrant communities) in improving housing for the working poor. Utilizing specially commissioned contem-porary photography, and many never-before-published historical images, The Decorated Tenement complicates monolithic notions of architectural taste and housing standards while broadening our understanding of the diversity of cultural and economic positions of those responsible for shaping American architecture and urban landscapes.
Winner of the International Society of Place, Landscape, and Culture Fred B. Kniffen Award
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 22, 2019
An excellent stroll through the history of the Lower East Side (and Boston) as seen through the mechanics of local residential real estate development.
Well written and well researched, Violette claimed to have surveyed many hundreds of buildings (the evidence is there!) and uses broad brush strokes to knock down the popular narrative of housing reformers around the turn of the century. The conditions were better than the likes of Riis made them out to be — of course those of us who know the tenements well and had ancestors in them knew that, but here the script is flipped.
The nuances of tenement construction and the ad hoc improvement of the housing type are endless. As someone who studies these buildings from a professional standpoint, it’s exciting to read new, revolutionary scholarship like this.
I wish Violette would have delved into some more specifics and graphics around the evolution of the floor plan, but this is but a minor nit-pick.
Five stars for Violette, and five stars for those beloved buildings which extend five flights up.
Well written and well researched, Violette claimed to have surveyed many hundreds of buildings (the evidence is there!) and uses broad brush strokes to knock down the popular narrative of housing reformers around the turn of the century. The conditions were better than the likes of Riis made them out to be — of course those of us who know the tenements well and had ancestors in them knew that, but here the script is flipped.
The nuances of tenement construction and the ad hoc improvement of the housing type are endless. As someone who studies these buildings from a professional standpoint, it’s exciting to read new, revolutionary scholarship like this.
I wish Violette would have delved into some more specifics and graphics around the evolution of the floor plan, but this is but a minor nit-pick.
Five stars for Violette, and five stars for those beloved buildings which extend five flights up.
June 17, 2020
For me, the most interesting sections were those about floorplan changes, building code, and then the final chapter. Numerous buildings were included in this book that I would not have called "tenements." I looked to see if the author defined tenement, and he did not, but did say that he used the term decorated tenement "less to identify a building type," than to mean "a building built in a 'slum' neighborhood for working-class...whose facade is ornamented...." This, to me, speaks more to the adjective than the noun, so I'm still not sure what the criteria was for a building to be considered a tenement.
Also found interesting the discussion on the biases and prejudices of Riis and his contemporaries in their criticisms of tenement life.
Also found interesting the discussion on the biases and prejudices of Riis and his contemporaries in their criticisms of tenement life.
November 23, 2025
Would give 4.5/5 stars if possible. Excellent history of market-rate housing construction from the neglected practitioner and tenant PoV rather than the elitist (usually nativist and sort of anti-urban) "reformer" stance.
Some great nuggets here about what makes sense to regulate from a housing construction PoV vs. what doesn't, and worth thinking about how regulators' preferences might be substantially different than tenants'.
Some great nuggets here about what makes sense to regulate from a housing construction PoV vs. what doesn't, and worth thinking about how regulators' preferences might be substantially different than tenants'.
January 18, 2022
Fascinating history of tenements and how they were transformed into very nice places to live.
The author did a lot of research.
I enjoyed this book and would like to read it again at some point.
The author did a lot of research.
I enjoyed this book and would like to read it again at some point.
April 7, 2024
Let buildings be fun!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews